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Dan Balz

One of the interesting things about the Trumpapalooza going on in the GOP nomination contest has to do with the cover lesser candidates are getting. Then again, this is the GOP nomination contest, so taking cover from seemingly inevitable flak has its drawbacks; rhetorical martyrdom is the way to score points with the conservative base, so perhaps Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was hoping for louder criticism:

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio sounded the alarm about the state of U.S. armed forces in a foreign-policy speech today. But his claims and campaign promises don’t account for the impact of improvements in U.S. military technology or in some cases their production schedule.

Rubio, a Florida senator, said the U.S. Navy is “now smaller than at any time since before World War I” and the Air Force “has the smallest and oldest combat force in its history.”

Yet the numbers of ships and planes don’t define U.S. military capabilities.

Mike Dorning and John Walcott of Bloomberg Politics consider the issue, and let us simply pause for a moment to appreciate the magnitude of Mr. Rubio’s utter stupidity.

When Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made the same argument — that the U.S. Navy is smaller than at any time since 1917 — during a 2012 campaign debate, President Barack Obama responded with a mocking rejoinder.

“We also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed,” Obama said. “We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.”

It would be difficult enough to construct an infraction scheme for our political discourse, but at some point Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) needs some time in the penalty box. After ducking obvious questions about evolution and the ravings of a madman, the Badger-in-chief has once again stared into the eyes of a straightforward question and buckled.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a prospective Republican presidential contender, said Saturday he does not know whether President Obama is a Christian.

“I don’t know,” Walker said in an interview at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, where he was attending the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.

Told that Obama has frequently spoken publicly about his Christian faith, Walker maintained that he was not aware of the president’s religion.

“I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” Walker said, his voice calm and firm. “I’ve never asked him that,” he added. “You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that. How [could] I say if I know either of you are a Christian?”

True, the proposition of “dog whistle” politics is always a sketchy one; we prefer to call it by its name, which is “bigoted” politics. But given an example of this basic function, it really is the proper indictment.

But here’s the thing. The governor responded that “this is a classic example of why people hate Washington and, increasingly, they dislike the press”, a point reiterated by spokeswoman Jocelyn Webster when she called the Washington Post to try to salvage the governor’s performance:

“Of course the governor thinks the president is a Christian,” she said. “He thinks these kinds of gotcha questions distract from what he’s doing as governor of Wisconsin to make the state better and make life better for people in his state.”

Mr. Walker and his staff, including Ms. Webster, need to recognize that they are asking to play at the highest valence of American politics, and cheap excuses are unproductive. To explain it as simply as possible for both their benefits: When the eventual answer is, “Of course he thinks ____”, it would behoove the candidate to say so in the first place.